While researching for a post, I came across an interesting concept to reality video. Back in 2007 WIRED had commissioned Yochiro Ono to create the cover design for their November issue. The concept was “Manga Conquers America”. Although it isn’t explicitly said, the evolutionary process highlights the importance placed on the cover design; the first impression. Similar to Bayonetta’s enemy creation, understanding all the elements of the design gives you a greater appreciation for the final product.

[WIRED]

As you could see since midnight, if you were around, Dark Diamond now has new clothes. There’s now much more black and much more purple, which you may or may not like. This is a completely new design that not only addresses some of the serious issues of the previous design but also improves several new points. There’s a new navigation based on categories and the tag list is now much more accessible. This design is literally the work of several days slaving over code and the reason why I was so quiet around the site.

But its not all cosmetic! While you can only now see the new design, for the past few days you saw much more activity from other writers, this is part of our reinforced commitment to bring you, the reader, more and better content. For this purpose we’ll be changing many other things backstage, among them will be recruiting more writers. We want to give you a better Dark Diamond and this is just the beginning.

So tell us what you think of the new duds, does it make our ass look fat? It actually does! We’re now 1000 pixels wide. Hit us up in the comments and let us know!

We where just recently told that DDN looks all screwed up in Firefox, the menu’s at the bottom and what-not. We’ve spent all day trying to get it fixed to no avail. Thankfully Velcor found someone who’s willing to help us out! We thank him with our collective hearts.

While he tries to find the problem, I’m catching up on my rusty CSS. If anyone else cares to try and solve the problem, by all means! Give it a try! In the meantime, pardon our dust! (which you have apparently been pardoning for a couple of months already)

All right for all those productivity and file managing geeks we’ve got a little something for you! This is a video of BumpTop, a desktop replacement for Windows. Sure there are lots of replacements out there, but this one is actually as close as you can get to a real desktop.

You can pile, throw, crush, bend and even stack your documents. Its something you have to see to believe. The most amazing part is that it appears to be really intuitive.

Read more!

Raph Koster, game designer and theorist, wrote a little piece on what he calls the life cycle of gamers. He adds to his insight some other related gamer cycle models that illustrate the attitude an individual takes in a virtual world. You are bound to feel identified with one of the profiles. Perhaps you’ll find out why gaming doesn’t feel like it used to!

• First Circle players are newbies who just want to survive.
• Second Circle players are competent, and start to feel like the game is “fun.”
• Third Circle players are excelling. They’re also often cheating, as they take on the tough stuff.
• Fourth Circle players are about proving their mastery by either killing other players or mentoring them.
• Fifth Circle players are “done.” They need new challenges, which they might get by an alt, RP, moving to forums, guild play, a whole new game…
• Sixth Circle players are enlightened Zen beings that understand everything and every mode of play and blend them seamlessly.

Identify yourself there?

[Raph's Website / Via BoingBoing]

So today was the last day I had to be at school to attend something, from now on its just going to get a couple of grades. Hopefully the neglecting of the site ends today, I still have a couple of articles that ive been putting aside but thats not the point.
I think DDN needs to get its act toghether, read on for more.

Read more!